Nov 9, 2011

Bentley Announces Release of Innovative Raceway and Cable Management

Bentley Systems today launched the first and only comprehensive, integrated software developed specifically to design, model, and deliver both raceway and cable systems, for plant and manufacturing facilities and utility substations. Taking intelligent models from design through construction and into operations, Bentley Raceway and Cable Management V8i uniquely integrates functional design with detailed physical design and includes a wide range of 2D and 3D design tools. By providing users with early and accurate material requirements via automated intelligent functions and highly realistic 3D design simulation, Bentley Raceway and Cable Management V8i improves quality, leads to increased safety in construction, and enhances operations management through the integrity of a comprehensive as-operated model across constant retrofits.

Commenting on the new software, Richard Bornhoffer, project engineer and project manager CAD strategies (substations), ABB, said,“Bentley Raceway and Cable Management represents a new approach to cable and raceway planning with strong functionality and an efficient workflow that increases our productivity. ABB has been pleased to work with Bentley to evaluate this innovative new product.”

Eric Putnam, senior electrical engineer, Burns & McDonnell, said, “Bentley Raceway and Cable Management provides us with not only an excellent tool for accurately routing raceways and producing bills of material, but it also provides an equally excellent tool for tracking and routing all of the cables within them. It provides us with autorouting, automatic creation of pull cards, automatic calculation of conduit and tray fills, change control, AND is seamlessly integrated into our existing Bentley models. This is what BIM is supposed to be.”

The software’s many features and advantages include:

conceptual design capabilities that facilitate early project starts – by allowing users to place orders in advance using accurate material estimates, and by providing space allocations that enable collaboration with other disciplines; integration of raceway and cable design – combining raceway design with intelligent cable routing functions so that users can complete the design more quickly and accurately than by using separate software tools for each of these tasks; automatic generation of reports and construction deliverables – including bill of materials (BOMs), bill of quantities, cable schedules, cable pull cards, and 2D construction drawings (which are automatically extracted from the 3D model); more efficient design processes – as a result of conceptual design data feeding directly into detailed design (eliminating data re-entry); a parametric raceway engine that makes drawing and modifying raceways, cable trays, and conduits easy; and intelligent functions to calculate raceway fill, cable length, and optimized cable routes; 3D design visualizations – making it easier to allocate space and avoid clashes; support for above ground and below ground cable and raceway placement.

Bentley Vice President Ken Adamson said, “Bentley Raceway and Cable Management is a unique application that meets a real need in electrical design and the management of operations tasks, including retrofit work. Until now, the design of complex raceway and cable systems required a number of separate software products to handle all of the different tasks. With Bentley Raceway and Cable Management, users have a single, integrated product that generates intelligent 2D and 3D designs as well as reports and construction deliverables. It lets the designer work far more efficiently with fewer errors, saving time and money. Equally important, this product complements – and will intra-operate with – other Bentley offerings such as Bentley Substation, OpenPlant, ProjectWise, and promis•e that can together improve the overall design of large-facility projects.”